ONLINE SHOPS

Online shops create opportunities for national distribution, offering customers a choice of produce without the commitment of a box scheme or CSA, and providing producers with wider access to markets than a farm shop or market stall. This can be especially useful for producers in remote areas where delivery or collection logistics are complicated, or for farmers producing more specialised products where customers are unlikely to have a regular order and demand from the community in the vicinity of the farm is insufficient to meet the supply.

An emerging outcome of the COVID-19 pandemic is an increase in online shopping and an increased demand for home delivery, creating opportunities for farms able to market online.

Online shops are successfully used for a huge range of produce and there are a number of software options that can ‘plug-in’ to your existing website, or be the basis for a new one.

Online shops vary considerably in the delivery of their produce. In some cases producers use them as an ordering mechanism that fits into a farm collection or local delivery route whereas in others, farms use a delivery company, courier, pallet distribution or the post office for nationwide delivery of orders.

We look at packaging and courier services for online shops later in this guide.

For farmers and growers who do not want to set up their own online shop front, they might like to link up with a food hub that will market and distribute their produce online. In this scenario farmers and growers receive a purchase order from the hub with a list of orders for each week. They then harvest and prepare produce to fulfil the purchase order and deliver it to the hub for packing and distribution.

Advantages

 * Low overheads for staffing and premises.
 * Increased potential customer base through national distribution.
 * You can sell the produce you specialise in.
 * You get the retail price for your produce, unless you sell through a food hub which will require a mark-up.
 * Not having to do deliveries creates opportunities for farms in remote areas.
 * Opportunities to take advance orders e.g. selling meat boxes in advance of slaughter dates.

Disadvantages

 * Harder to develop customer retention because of absence of face-to-face contact.
 * Requires good online marketing and web skills, or a budget to hire someone for this work.
 * Harder to predict cash flow and sales volumes.